But Terrafugia vice president Richard Gersh says the car can fly much farther.

“It has a range of about 400 to 450 miles, which would take you somewhat in the order of three to three-and-a-half hours,” Gersh told WBZ NewsRadio 1030.

Gersch says the Transition flying car will be formally introduced this week at the New York Auto Show and orders are piling up.

“We have approximately 100 orders on the books and we expect first delivery within the year,” he said.

The Transition has folding wings and seats two.

(Photo courtesy: Terrafugia-Facebook)

So, how do you drive or fly it?

“It drives just a like a car. It has a steering wheel, a gas pedal and a brake pedal. And, essentially, it has an automatic transmission. That’s when the wings would be folded up,” Gersh explained.

“When the wings are unfolded at your airport, it converts to flight mode, which disengages the road transmission and engages the propeller. And in that case, to fly the vehicle, you have a control stick, which, actually is located on the floor of the vehicle, kind of like a fighter pilot plane. And when you are flying the aircraft, you use the stick on the floor, but the wheel does remain attached, you just don’t’ have to use it in the air.”

ah yes… and the boogey man is hiding beneath your bed… don’t even bother getting out of bed in the morning because it’s too scary.. boo! At a price of 297,000 dollars, I don’t think many of us will be able to ever buy such a vehicle…

Right, Bill. The first to gain FAA certification was Molt Taylor’s design in the 1950’s. Taylor thought he was going to sell a lot of them, I think he may have built three. That tells you what the market really is. With a price tag of $279,000 they will never sell enough to recoup even a part of their decade long development costs.

Definitely not the first flying car. Molt Taylor built one in the 50s or early 60s and Ford came pretty close to producing it, but concerns about liability made them come to their senses.
Engineering compromises necessitated by the dual function mean that you end up with a very expensive contraption that is a poor airplane and a terrible car. I pity the poor souls who invested in that one!

Uh, the Moller SkyCar has never done a test flight. It showed flight potential in a hover test, but has undergone serious reworkings since. Also, I’ve read nothing about the Moller SkyCar actually aiming to be a street legal vehicle in addition to a flight vehicle, though I could be wrong on this as I haven’t researched their SkyCar too much. But their philsophy for a “flying car” is to have a plane that anyone who is able to drive can fly. So it’s a highly automated flight system that requires only two inputs from a user (left and right) as opposed to Woburn’s flying car that is being designed to be street legal and also flown in the same manner that you fly an airplane (joystick with multidirectional input).

Regardless of Moller’s vision, Woburn beat them to having the first flying car with a proven model. Remember that many others had airplanes before the Wright Brothers, but they couldn’t sustain flight.

A pointless plane, costing $100k+ more than the flying competition and rewarding that differential with a horrendously awful driving experience, for sure. Utterly pointless. 100 orders on the books, is that 100 orders or “100 deposits”, because there’s a huge difference.

The FIRST Flying Car was actually in the early 70’s, and was nicknamed “the flying pinto.” The inventor died in 1973 during a routine flight, and so ended that prototype. However, other people did try to imitate it and eventually failed to get it going commercially. The headline is very inaccurate, as is most news storys today.

That is not a flying car. It’s a roadworthy airplane. A flying car will not have wings and you won’t need a pilot’s license to navigate one. This is more media hype about nothing more than a rich man’s hobby.

It’s not the first. I remember seeing Popular Mechanics articles on other “flying cars” that were built during the early 20th century. They’re NOT practical.

Look at this ugly thing. cramped, awkward looking and has those wings to block anything right or left of you in traffic.

Any hybrid is a compromise. Combining a land vehicle with a plane, the compromises are made on the vehicle side as the plane HAS TO FLY or your dead or the thing is pointless. That’s what they did here. Driving is an after thought in the design.

This is a fold up PLANE that can drive itself around.

Flooded with orders? 100? That’s first adopters and collectors looking to cash in on these things when they become obsolete and out of production in 2 years.

Anti-gravity or duct fan lift is what were waiting for. That will take a lot of research and development and I don’t think the US has it any more.

OH WELL. They promised us George Jefferson and now we can’t even get to low orbit.

Ya, I get in a rear-ender in California and can not fly, do I now need to drive all the way to Boston to get it repaired? I would not trust the people on the road to drive something this expensive around. Wonder why the Youtube video did not show it taking off…still experimental?

Author obviously did not even google “Flying car”, as a link near the top is to wiki with a brief history of flying cars including a pic to one from 1940. But as mentioned, they really are just silly planes that “kind of” drive.

The headeline said that this is the “FIRST” flying car. I saw a documentry on Discovery that reported on a company that built a few back in the ’90s, including a test flight. The price tag was over a quarter million, and one HAS to have a pilot’s licence to fly one.
They didn’t sell because of the high price and lack of interest
IF every driver could buy a flying car, our back yards would full of crashed fllying Buicks with their left turn signals stuck.

$279000? You can buy an LSA or even a decent used Cessna for that and pay for your flight ratings (and depending on the aircraft get IFR cert). Just as easy as buying a “flying car.” The reason aviation related accidents make such big news because it is the safest form of transportation. There are a lot of reguations in place to ensure safe airspace, and the training required by aviation professionals (and hobby pilots) is intense, expensive, and very good. I am a pilot, and I have my degree in aviation, and I have worked on military aircraft, so I know what goes into aircraft. A flying car for the general public (or anybody) is highly unrealistic.

You people are idiots. 1) Terrafugia claims to have made a: “Roadworthy aircraft”, not a: “Flying Car”. 2) The: “Flying cars” from the 50s and 60s had a huge problem – when they landed they had to take the wings off and leave them at the airport. This was difficult to do and it meant that you had to return to the same airport when you wanted to fly again. 3) I have been a private pilot for some time, and there have been plenty of times when I have gotten to a remote airport and there was no ground transportation available at all. This gets around that problem. 4) I have known people who got caught out by the weather, didn’t want to stay overnight in East Bum*uck, started back in minimal conditions and crashed. With this machine you have the option of driving home, or at least starting to drive home and then taking off enroute if things improve.

So it’s an small airplane that you can take home to your garage. Big Deal. FAA requirements, pilots license, taxes, fees, upkeep. And who will service it? Jiffy Lube? If you can’t take off and land on streets, what’s the point? Really?

You could buy a Mercedes 550CLS and a Cessna 310 and still have $80,000 for the flight instructions and a hanger. The flying car is nothing new with other attempts a total failure. Hope no tax payer money went into this pending liability nightmare.

Students of the Kennedy School of Aviation will be the first wanker buyers. Too much money with too little brains.

This is stupid. You still need a runway which means you need to go to the airport. How many times could I drive a car to the airport and fly commercial for $300,000? It’s not the flying car of the future until I can fly it out of my drive way and land it at the grocery store.

The first commercial flying cars were built 62 years ago! This is far from being the first certified flying car. The first flying car was built in 1949 by Moulton B. Taylor, it was called the Aerocar. Taylor recieved his CAA certification for the flying car in 1956. The Aerocar was also patented in 1956. Several examples still currently exist and fly. I saw one at a vintage car show two years ago. The owner flew the car to the show and gave an exibition of what it can do. Here is a link about the Aerocar http://www.fiddlersgreen.net/models/aircraft/Aerocar.html .

Well it is NOT the worlds first flyinh car. Heathkit offered one in the 1940’s, and there were other one of designs as well. Also there is a Dutch firl making a smaller one, that is helicopter based car, 100 MPH on air or land that sells for about half of this one. The PAL is that model. As for the line, a used SEL plane (single engine land) can be as cheap as under $10k, and your used Yugo and for $12k you can have both. And as for users, PILOT LICENSE REQUIRED, and it would be operated under private pilot regs.

Let’s just concede that this is nowhere near the FIRST “flying car” or “roadworthy plane”. There have been many, many attempts to build such a device for at least 60 years. I still don’t see any flying — or driving down the highways. And I’ve never seen one at an airport — and I would really like to.

But bad journalism aside, I suspect this one is going the same way as all the rest:
1) – Who will FIX the things. Do we need an AIRCRAFT mechanic? Any old service station monkey (most of whom seem incapable of fixing AUTOMOBILES)? The owner in his driveway?
2) – Who will INSURE the things? Are they insured as AUTOs? Or are they to be insured as airplanes?
3) – What about that “fender bender” in the super market parking lot (OK! While driving home from the airport and you just need to stop and grab a few things!}?
4) – If you lose your DRIVERs license, can you still fly it? Likewise, if you lose your PILOT’s license, can you still drive it?

“Light sport aircraft” — and the amateur pilots who fly them — are really toys. And I won’t even mention the restrictions placed on them in terms of where they can fly. I’m expecting some NASCAR type trying to upgrade this thing with a muscle engine or other enhancement.

We’ll see what happens when the first one crashes!!! And we all know one will. Likely soon after the first sale….

Steps to using it:
File a flight plan online and get it approved.
Back it out of your oversized garage and drive it to the local private airport.
Upon arrival, somehow convince security to allow it onto the aircraft tarmac.
Contact ground control to announce your arrival, and get permission to taxi to runway.
Take-off and fly to your airport of choice (must be within about 430 miles).
Upon landing taxi off runway area and convert to car mode.
Drive to some gate and somehow convince security to allow your vehicle to drive off the tarmac.

Advantages:
Skip waiting in line for baggage check-in.
A 400 mile trip which would take 6 hours in a car would now only take 5 hours in your new flying car: 3.5 hours to fly, 30 min to taxi and take-off/land at both ends, 1 hour for security arrangements at both ends, 0:45 min to drive to/from the airport in car mode (airport diversion cost).

Disadvantages:
Delays due to unique security procedures. To comply with Homeland security and TSA requirements, all passengers, baggage, and the vehicle will be subject to extensive security searches. (the new security procedures, gates and personal must be paid for by the vehicle owners).
At 279,000 baseline price, plus double the gas, and with insurance, maintenance, and taxes at probably 20x the car rate …means that trip costs $3.50/mile instead of 25 cents/mile.

Don’t get me wrong; I think this is a rather unlikely idea. But SECURITY isn’t the problem.

Today, I can drive my car through the gate at my “local private airport” and park right next to my hangar. Indeed, I usually leave the car IN the hangar when I fly. (The owner may have to “rent” a gate key or make some other arrangements since he’s not providing other revenue to the airport, but if these things became common, I suspect airports would make accomodation.

Admittedly, I’ve never tried to taxi my plane off an airport I’ve visited, but I’ve also never been to an airport that wouldn’t open the gate if asked. (I can see a problem after dark or when the airport is unattaended.. Call ahead!)

The TSA has nothing whatsoever to do with small private airports. There are some regulations concerning where small planes can FLY, but they apply to all airplanes, not just flying cars.

I would point out that most of the airports where these things are likely to be operating don’t use radios.

Where does CBS get its so called reporters from? First flying car my foot. I am eighty one years old and I can remember seeing a flying car on the RKO Pathe Newsreel back in the day when movie houses presented newsreels. No wonder CBS is going broke.

But what if you live in Southern California and you pay the $279,000 for this flying car and as you’re on your way to the airport, you get hit by an uninsured illegal alien who gets out of his car and runs off? Then what?

Check out a Carter Copter. http://www.cartercopters.com/ The Carter Copter combined with a road worthy chassis, fold up wings and main rotor will blow away Tera Failure flying car. Check out the video – true zero roll take off thus no need for a long runway. Heck, the monied owner could take off and land in the front yard of the Southborough mansion.
I saw one at OshKosh a few years ago. Superb concept indeed. Cruise speed in excess of 200mph!

You really make it appear so easy along with your presentation however I find this matter to be actually one thing that I feel I’d by no means understand. It kind of feels too complex and extremely large for me. I am having a look forward for your subsequent post, I will attempt to get the hold of it!